With 64,7 of the votes, acting Murmansk Governor Marina Kovtun avoids a second election round required if none of the candidates gets less than 50 percent of all votes.
Last time with free Governors election in Murmansk was 10 years ago, when Yuri Evdokimov was re-elected. In 2004, the voter turnout was over 50 percent, with some places on the Kola Peninsula up to 70 percent.
Also in comparison, last regional parliament election in Murmansk had a turnout of 45,4 percent, according to statistics posted on Patchwork Barents, a cross-country statistical portal designed for the Barents Region.
Direct governor elections were abolished by President Putin during his first presidency in 2004, but were later reintroduced by Medvedev in 2012.
Governor election for Murmansk was announced in early May after Marina Kovtun asked President Vladimir Putin to be released from the position in order to take part in the September elections.
“I want to secure the support from my countrymen, to assure myself that everything we do has or has not their support, but they need to express it to me,” Kovtun said in her explanation to the president, as reported by BarentsObserver.
Michael Antropov from the Communist Party got second most votes in Sunday’s Murmansk Governor elections with 11,3 percent. Fair Russia’s candidate Aleksandr Makarevich got 10,8 percent followed by Maksim Belov from LDPR and Igor Morari from Civil Platform, both with 5,5 percent. The results are posted on TV21.
